History/Realism vs gameplay

tater · 04-05-07, 11:39 AM

I replied to a post regarding aircraft swarming a player in the other forum. He said that he got bombed a lot, but their accuracy was so lousy he'd not get damaged. I suggested that they (the devs) might have nerfed the accuracy because the bomb loads were so rediculously high.

Got me thinging about history/realism vs gameplay.

There have been a few discussions regarding realism, and I think there is a good reason that history and realism be the baseline state for a game such as SH4. The plane example above works perfectly.

Example 1: The devs don't bother to get the realism right regarding proper japanese bomb loads. They chcuk in the grossly wrong figures we see in vanilla SH4. In playtesting, they get sunk constantly by aircraft. So they make the planes aim poor. Alternately, they might nerf the bombs themselves such that a near miss by a 500kg bomb does less damage than it should.

That's an example where it would be better to start with the "clean slate" of accurate bomb loads and bomb damage, THEN tweak for gameplay.

Example 2: Escort AI. There have been many tweaks/mods on this already because of the perception that the AI stinks at ASW. The tweaks DO make ASW more effective, but the perception of incompetance on the part of the AI could also be because the AI levels on the vast majority of escorts is set to "novice" in the campaign mission files. Perhaps the devs dropped convoy ASW AI levels because they were too hard on competant, veteran, or elite. That might well be true since so many convoys are escorted by multiple fleet DDs, something that would have been rare even in late war. If the Task Force escorts are set to "elite" (and they almost all are), then the same DD types should be "elite" on convoy duty, the ship, officers, and crew are all the same, even if they get detached to convoy duty for a couple weeks. So ignoring history results in too many DD escorting each convoy (and too many convoys of too large a size). Because there are too many DDs, the AI is nerfed to make it easier.

There are more examples, but the basic idea is that the best starting point is accuracy because when things are realistic, we know what the outcomes SHOULD be. As soon as things are moved away from reality, cause and effect become less reliable—tweak this, then somethign downstream breaks, which requires another alteration, etc, ad nauseum.

tater

04-05-07, 11:39 AM	#1
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	History/Realism vs gameplay I replied to a post regarding aircraft swarming a player in the other forum. He said that he got bombed a lot, but their accuracy was so lousy he'd not get damaged. I suggested that they (the devs) might have nerfed the accuracy because the bomb loads were so rediculously high. Got me thinging about history/realism vs gameplay. There have been a few discussions regarding realism, and I think there is a good reason that history and realism be the baseline state for a game such as SH4. The plane example above works perfectly. Example 1: The devs don't bother to get the realism right regarding proper japanese bomb loads. They chcuk in the grossly wrong figures we see in vanilla SH4. In playtesting, they get sunk constantly by aircraft. So they make the planes aim poor. Alternately, they might nerf the bombs themselves such that a near miss by a 500kg bomb does less damage than it should. That's an example where it would be better to start with the "clean slate" of accurate bomb loads and bomb damage, THEN tweak for gameplay. Example 2: Escort AI. There have been many tweaks/mods on this already because of the perception that the AI stinks at ASW. The tweaks DO make ASW more effective, but the perception of incompetance on the part of the AI could also be because the AI levels on the vast majority of escorts is set to "novice" in the campaign mission files. Perhaps the devs dropped convoy ASW AI levels because they were too hard on competant, veteran, or elite. That might well be true since so many convoys are escorted by multiple fleet DDs, something that would have been rare even in late war. If the Task Force escorts are set to "elite" (and they almost all are), then the same DD types should be "elite" on convoy duty, the ship, officers, and crew are all the same, even if they get detached to convoy duty for a couple weeks. So ignoring history results in too many DD escorting each convoy (and too many convoys of too large a size). Because there are too many DDs, the AI is nerfed to make it easier. There are more examples, but the basic idea is that the best starting point is accuracy because when things are realistic, we know what the outcomes SHOULD be. As soon as things are moved away from reality, cause and effect become less reliable—tweak this, then somethign downstream breaks, which requires another alteration, etc, ad nauseum. tater Last edited by tater; 04-05-07 at 12:27 PM.